Twenty Weeks: Patchwork
by hiddenmoments
Summary: Don Eppes changes a little with every person he meets and he can never forget a single one of them because they stare at him out of his own face every time he looks in the mirror. Twenty weeks at Quantico adds more than he'll ever know, maybe takes a little away as well, and he can only hope that all the pieces give him a skin he can settle in at least for a little while.
1. Chapter 1

_**Something a little different this time although I still don't have rights to any of it. I decided to try my hand at Billy's Quantico experience a while ago but that spiralled a little out of control. Don's came through a bit clearer and calmer, which isn't really surprising, and there are some scribbles floating about for the rest of the gang's but they're a long way away. Hopefully this appeases those of you who wanted something with a bit more substance than the craziness of the last few stories. It gets a little dark at points.**_

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**Part I: I-V**

Don Eppes makes the decision to quit baseball after they win the most important game of the season. He looks to the stands from his teammates' shoulders after a home run and wonders what the hell he's doing playing minor league ball as a utility player. He wonders why he's still there, still trying, still waiting.

No one is in the stands for him and no one has been there for years.

He crumples the pamphlet the FBI recruiter on campus, one career advisory day a long time ago, had given him in his hands and then smooths it out, noting the next date for applications, before pinning it to the memo board in his room. He spends more time staring at it in the dark from his bed than he does sleeping.

The next morning he goes to practice and doesn't say anything.

Three weeks later he goes and sits the entrance exam and another week after that, hours after he shakes his interviewer's hand as the man says he'll see him at Quantico, he plays his last game and shakes his coach's hand as well.

"I'm never going to make the majors." He turns away from the surprise and disappointment because he knows well enough what they look like and doesn't need to see them on another face.

Telling his family goes about as well as he expected but he tells himself, over and over again, that this decision isn't for them. He believes himself, just a little, for the first time in a very long time as his father shouts, his mother looks at him with a patient and unsurprised kind of confusion, and his brother scratches away at his equations on a chalkboard.

"The _FBI_? Why not just go the whole way and join the Army? Did we not teach you anything?"

He believes himself, just a little, because this was something he didn't need to think about anyone else when making this decision. It was just for him and that is unfamiliar enough that he clings to it like he used to cling to his bat on the long, dark, bike rides home after Little League practices.

**i.**

Don slips into the fabric of Quantico as easily as he slipped into the fabric of high school, college, the Rangers. He doesn't have to worry about protecting anyone but himself and even the rigid, inflexible routine feels like freedom in comparison to everything else he ever remembers.

No one here knows anything about him except what he can do and that suits him here just as well as it did at the Rangers. Somehow, even though the fitness test they do in the first week is nothing compared to some of his training sessions and he is almost guiltily pleased with how well he does in comparison to the other recruits, success here feels even better as though every success he's ever achieved before was just a trial run for this. He feels like what he can do here is worthwhile and that is an addicting feeling. It reminds him of the rush of winning a game, at least in the beginning, of that heady sense of achievement that he doesn't think he'll ever stop striving for.

He discovers, with no small amount of surprise, that when he isn't next to Charlie he's smarter than he ever gave himself credit for. He stretches his mind and body out further than he ever has before and there are no walls there to stifle him here.

It finally feels like he might have outrun the ghosts at his heels and so he throws himself in headfirst because life and experience and reality have taught him a harsh lesson over and over again and he knows with unwavering certainty that good things seldom last.

**ii.**

Sometime in the second week, amidst lectures that leave his brain abuzz like he's never felt before and practical exercises that somehow leave him flooded with adrenaline for hours afterwards in a way that games never did, Don falls in with a trio of childhood friends a couple of years older than him. Richard Morse, a 26 year old lawyer, engages him in conversation at the end of a law and ethics seminar and, before he realises it, he's sitting at their table for lunch and the conversation has turned to college.

The trio are from Boston and had all graduated from Harvard. Don forgets to be intimidated after a while because Alex Doherty and Carter Bennett think that the fact he played ball with the Stockton Rangers is even more impressive than the fact that they'd gone to an Ivy League college.

They trade stories from the courtroom for stories from the diamond, from sidebars for the locker rooms, and Don sits with them at each meal and in each class. After a few days he is caught off guard by the realisation that they're friends.

"It's good to have fresh blood," Richard laughs at the third dinner they spend together. All four are uncomfortably and just a little smugly aware of the gazes of the other recruits who haven't knitted together quite so completely. "New stories and a different face, you know? We're practically brothers. I've endured _years_ of these two's shit talking and ugly mugs."

Alex punches Richard in the shoulder with a grin and Carter steals the last of his chicken while they're distracted and Don feels an unfamiliar sense of warmth settle around him as Richard rolls his eyes in resignation.

He deliberately doesn't mention that his eighteen year old brother is a Princeton graduate and it doesn't escape his notice that they don't talk about their families either but somehow it doesn't seem to matter.

**iii.**

All the recruits are given the same lecture about restrictions on fraternisation but, just like high school and college, it doesn't do more than add an extra thrill and ensure that it will happen regardless, probably in spite, of any prohibitions.

Terry Lake catches Don's eye before the first month is out and he somehow knows that she's nothing like any girl he's ever been with before. The idea is somehow both exhilarating and terrifying and he wonders if the spark in her eyes whenever he manages to catch them is real or imagined.

"She's a right spitfire, that one," Alex says under his breath during a behavioural science lecture that Don spends more of watching her than taking notes. "Did you see her last round with that Amazon in the ring? You might get burned there."

Don does little more than nod and let a half-grin quirk the corners of his mouth up. He murmurs that getting burned is half the fun and Alex grins back, nudging him, and snickers. Don thinks that this must be what having a brother is supposed to feel like. "You sly dog."

He deliberately ignores the look that Richard shoots him and rolls his eyes at Carter's lewd expression instead before focusing on the lecturer and going back to his notes.

Every few moments his eyes drift over Terry Lake's neat ponytail and he doesn't bother trying to stop them.

The half grin, brief flash of teeth and spark that he sees on their way out of the lecture room is definitely real and he deliberately tamps down the flutter of something unfamiliar in his stomach.

**iv.**

By the end of the fourth week Don thinks that he's almost forgotten what life outside of Quantico is like and the little bit of him that isn't calmly pleased with that says that maybe, just maybe he should write his parents.

He stares blankly at the lined paper and pen resting neatly beside it and wonders why he has no desire to write down any of the many things that have happened in the last four weeks. The thought of putting them to paper to share with his family fills him with an odd sense of dread and the part of him that feels like he should write wonders why that is.

Reminding himself of his father's words when he'd brought the acceptance letter to the house is more than enough to shut that tiny bit up just as Richard appears at the door in their regulation issue gym gear. He wonders just for a moment why it is he so badly doesn't want to write them but forgets about it as the other man opens his mouth.

"Come for a run?"

He doesn't think, just nods, and laces his shoes faster than he thinks he ever has before. They trade off the lead, each taking turns setting a punishing pace, and run until the screaming in their muscles is louder than the screaming in their heads because, even though neither says a thing, they both know that the other can hear it too.

They keep running until the screaming in their muscles is the only thing left and there isn't any room left for the ghosts.

**v.**

Week five is their first proper round in Hogan's Alley and Don doesn't think he's ever been more nervous and excited about anything in his whole life. His knees shake and his palms sweat but the second the situation sinks through the fog in his brain he knows exactly what he needs to do.

He doesn't even realise that he's the one barking the instructions that the recruits in his section are following and when the siren screeches and the fog clears he blinks in bemusement.

A hand he somehow knows is Alex's descends on his shoulder and Richard is right at his side as Carter is the first to break the odd silence. "Where the _hell_ did that come from, Eppes?"

He blinks again and can't quite find words because he doesn't know either.

"Good show," one of the instructors says coolly, dark eyes giving nothing away, as he nods at them. Don thinks his name might be Edgerton. He's seen him around the firing range whenever they have firearms training. "This way, the four of you, to the range. You'll be with me for debriefing."

Alex's hand tightens on his shoulder, Richard stiffens beside him a little and Carter's sharp intake of breath doesn't escape his ears. Neither do the stares of the other recruits and he swallows quietly before meeting the dark eyes. His voice is remarkably steady as he responds.

"Yes sir."

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_**Well, that was interesting to write. I look forward to hearing what you all think of it. Next one shouldn't be more than a few days away, barring any unforeseen chaos that might pop up.**_


	2. Chapter 2

_**So, this was done at the expense of several readings that I've been attempting to get around to for the last week. What an amazing response, though, all of you absolutely humble me. I'm going to space it out and (hopefully) post each new one on Thursday/Friday nights so I have your reviews to look forward to over and get me through the chaos of the weekends. There are two more chapters and a tiny fifth part to finish it off if everything goes to plan. I'm working on a couple of** Outtakes** as well, so they'll go up over the next couple of days. ****This one kind of glosses over some things that I'm going to leave to your imaginations but you probably shouldn't read it if you're in the mood for happy.**_

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**Part II: VI-X**

**vi.**

Terry Lake seems to take even more notice of Don in the sixth week at Quantico. Everyone does, if he's going to be honest about it. Alex, Carter and Richard are the subjects of scrutiny from most of their peers as well. It doesn't seem to bother them quite as much.

Ian Edgerton is a Bureau tracker, they'd discovered, and legendary sniper. He'd been known to take certain recruits for private training and the other instructors tended to look the other way. The debriefing session had led to early morning sessions with the man for all four of them and it can be nothing but a positive thing – at least when they aren't _in_ the sessions.

The extra attention from the instructors doesn't alarm Don nearly as much as the same from their peers. It adjusts the composition of the fabric of Quantico and he isn't sure he likes that.

Don is completely caught off guard when a letter from his parents arrives towards the end of the week. His mother's handwriting is soft and a little apologetic and his father's is less angry than he'd feared and might not be apologetic but at least it is there.

There's nothing from his brother.

There must be something telling in his eyes because Alex and Carter are far less rambunctious than usual and allow him to stew in his silence all day. After dinner Richard takes him to the gym, without a word, and doesn't say anything when rage that he didn't know was there comes spilling out with the first punch he lands on the bag.

Terry says good morning the next day as he enters their behavioural science class and quirks a dark eyebrow as her eyes flicker over the faint bruising already showing on his knuckles. He thinks briefly of the ice compresses that he'd kept on his hands until the early hours of the morning and shrugs with one aching shoulder before quirking his lips in a half grin to match her eyebrow and heading back towards his seat.

She sits further towards the back that class, only a row ahead of Don, and Alex grins, Carter waggles his own eyebrows suggestively and Richard watches with an easy smile and something in his eyes that Don can't quite figure out.

They run that night because, even if it isn't overwhelming anymore, the screaming and ghosts are still there and they seem somehow less when their muscles are screaming too.

**vii.**

The second fitness test comes and goes and Don has to work harder than ever to pull ahead because somehow, perhaps when they weren't looking, the gauntlet has been thrown and he refuses to fail. Carter and Richard are right at his heels this time around and Alex pulls ahead for just a split second but can't make it count.

The competition sets their blood alight and the four of them are almost giddy with adrenaline when they are sent for showers. Don allows more animation to show through than he has in a long time and it is infectious.

Terry Lake and three other girls sit at a different table, across from theirs, at dinner that night, and it feels like junior high all over again. Alex and Carter bump and push and steal things from each other's plates and act more like teenagers than Don ever remembers acting. Richard watches with an indulgent kind of amusement and Don, almost despite himself, allows himself to be drawn into the sneaky roughhousing.

The girls approach them after dinner, which Don attributes to the blatant winking and grinning on Alex and Carter's parts, and they gravitate both together and apart. Don discovers that Terry fits perfectly beneath his arm and against his side, the two girls, Erin and Charlotte, are as alike as Alex and Carter are, and Alice, the girl who has no qualms about invading Richard's personal space is the only person he's ever heard call the other man Dick and get away with it.

He writes back to his parents, finally, that night. It takes more effort to keep his secrets than it usually does and he feels an odd sense of satisfaction when he keeps them behind his fingers and off the paper.

**viii.**

The eighth week tips his world on its axis and it somehow keeps turning regardless. Edgerton happily tortures them under the guise of training every morning, the four girls have become a regular, if somewhat transient, addition to their lives and he is in a perpetual state of mental and physical exhaustion that he thinks might be the closest he's going to come to content.

On the Tuesday morning Alex is missing from their session with the sniper and Don's mild surprise is the only reaction. As they dress for class Richard quietly asks Don not to say anything to Alex when he joins them for breakfast.

Don doesn't because he knows better than anyone how sometimes silent acceptance is all that's needed to put things, things that fight their way free through weak spots in your guard when you least expect it, back in their box.

On Friday evening they both join he and Richard on their run and when they all collapse in a panting, sweating heap Carter breaks the silence. He manages to be louder than any of the screams and paints a haunting picture with only a handful of words that settle like icicles along Don's spine.

He knows with a chilling certainty, as Richard's eyes darken and Carter's slide away from his and Alex's remain curiously blank, that those icicles and three pairs of eyes are irrevocably a part of _his_ fabric now.

**ix.**

Another letter from his parents arrives in the ninth week and somehow all their guards are lowered to the point where Don simply lets the envelope flutter down to land on his bed and turns away from it.

Richard tucks it under a stack of notebooks while Alex deliberately knocks the bedside table over and Carter bursts into raucous laughter and cries out for a taxi.

"Campus is a dry zone, Doherty," he chuckles. "Especially if you can't hold your liquor."

Don turns back towards them with an amused glint in his eye as the letter drifts even further into a box somewhere in the back of his mind.

After dinner the girls take them by the hands and the slow arc of the moon across the sky finds them sprawled out upon the field, with grass underneath their backs and hands underneath their clothes, as cracks in each of them are slowly filled even as new ones open underneath their skin.

They, all of them, give and take and heal and hurt, all at once. Somehow it is the best night's sleep any of them have had since arriving at Quantico. Each of them, even if they don't say the words, thinks that it is the best night's sleep they've had that they can remember.

**x.**

Somehow, perhaps while they weren't watching or maybe while they were trying to outrun their ghosts, they'd become a group all their own inside of Quantico.

Terry still fits just as perfectly beneath Don's arm and the spark in her eye still does something to his stomach every time he sees it. Alice still calls Richard Dick and gets away with it and he thinks that Erin and Charlotte are somehow blurring the differences between Alex and Carter even more.

Their next Hogan's Alley exercise the instructors send them through as a group of eight. They set two separate records for least time taken and least shots fired.

Edgerton comments on it on the Friday of their tenth week, wryly asks them "How does it feel to be the closest thing Quantico has to a high school it clique?" and Richard looks at him out of the corner of his eye around the scope of a rifle with a raised eyebrow.

Don isn't listening, too intently focused on the target at the other end of the range, and takes his shot. It pierces the cross in the centre of the paper forehead cleanly.

Alex and Carter don't even acknowledge the statement further than a dismissive scoff as they line up to take their turns behind Don and Richard.

Rolling his eyes as he hits the control to bring the paper targets down to them, Edgerton mockingly scoffs back in reply. He looks at the targets appraisingly.

"I'll say one thing for you, stupid jocks or otherwise," he says, taking in the neat clusters of holes. "Haven't seen shooting like this in trainees in a long time. Two laps of the field and then back here, I want to brief you on tonight's activities."

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_**Typical Ian, even giving stick to his favourites. I wonder how bad he is with the other recruits?**_

See you next week!


	3. Chapter 3

_**Happy Easter everybody! All your reviews have been amazing so thank you for that – I was worried about how I was going to go writing serious things again after the madcap insanity of the last four stories and all of your feedback has gone a long way towards convincing me I'm not completely hopeless at it.**_

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**Part III: XI-XV**

**xi.**

The eleventh week is a blur of adrenaline and late night tactical exercises that leave Don pleasantly and quietly exhausted. Ian tells the four of them that he expects more of them than any of the other recruits and that they need to start thinking about what divisions they want to go into after they're done because, if they don't disappoint him, he may be able to pull some strings.

Discussing their options is the focus of what little animation and energy they can muster after their compulsory training on top of the sessions that occasionally devolve into badly disguised physical torture and Ian bursting into their rooms at various stages of the night barking orders interspersed with what he calls encouragement, not any kind of encouragement they've ever heard before, and various loud and alarming noises.

They have a new and unusual mix of healthy respect and utter fear of the man's creativity by now.

The girls don't believe their stories about Ian's unorthodox methods and he flatly refuses, despite Alex and Carter's pleading, to do the same to them. He instead says that he'll surprise them at some point on Saturday evening with an activity for all eight of them because he assumes that they'll all be together. Don flushes a little, Richard refuses to meet the man's eyes and Alex and Carter simply look smug.

On Saturday evening they're in what has become their favourite place on the field and practically vibrating with adrenaline, much to the girls' confusion and consternation.

Terry and Alice are the first to suspect that something is going on. Alice peppers Richard with rapid-fire questions that he valiantly attempts to withstand and Terry simply pins Don with a stare that simultaneously sets his stomach to fluttering and his lips twitching with the beginnings of a grin.

They know that Ian must have them under surveillance because it is barely two minutes later that the shrill whistle and small pop of a paintball breaks the relative calm. Richard pushes Alice down and is on his stomach, eyes scanning the darkness, within seconds. Don knocks Terry's elbows out so she lands flat on the ground with a vague 'oof' noise and rolls to the side instantly.

Erin and Charlotte beat Alex and Carter to it, hitting the grass with quiet hisses of surprise.

"Spread out," Carter breathes quietly as another paint projectile hits the grass barely six inches from his face. "Stay low."

"There'll be guns over the crest," Don says and he barely makes it out of the way as a third hits smack in the middle of he and Richard. "Eyes open, be fast, and no straight lines or you'll be out before you even make the tree."

Forty five minutes later every single one of them is panting, eyes alight with adrenaline, exposed skin glowing with sweat and paint in the moonlight. They don't catch sight of Ian the whole time but that is no surprise.

Don doesn't think he's ever felt more alive than in the moment when Terry, all shining eyes and smears of paint and mud, collides with his midsection. A rush of words leave her lips as his arms slide around her waist but he doesn't care what they are and crushes their mouths together instead because that says everything that needs to be said.

**xii.**

Michael Wells, the tactical instructor, is a friend of Ian's and in the twelfth week he joins their little extracurricular group. The man is an expert in psychological warfare, as they soon find out, and by the end of their first week at the combined mercies of the pair they find themselves off-kilter and alarmingly fragile.

Don doesn't think he manages to hide the betrayal in his eyes when he looks at Ian at the end of the session, soaked with a cool sweat and overcome with an itching, uncontrollable urge to crawl out of his skin that he thought he'd put behind him a long time ago.

Ian's answering expression is less than sympathetic and when Richard turns an exhaustedly belligerent stare on him it becomes blatantly confrontational.

"There isn't an agent in the Bureau that doesn't know how to bullshit their way through a psych evaluation," he says and his voice is low and dark. "But they let the scars bleed themselves out when they open and you need to learn to do the same if you're going to make it."

Not one of them will be able to remember much of that weekend once it is over but Don remembers that he isn't the only thing between them and breaking, that he doesn't have to be the one to fight and keep all the pieces from shattering.

Richard remembers the slightly bitter and unfamiliar sense of satisfaction when he manages to step up to the plate and hold the most important parts of all of them together.

Alex remembers the quiet sounds of hitched breathing and the patter of rain on the roof and the lack of panic that they instil this time.

Carter remembers the tired glaze of two pairs of brown, one blue and one green, eyes when the sun sets on the Sunday evening and the scars have bled themselves almost dry.

**xiii.**

The thirteenth week is quiet in comparison to the others.

Ian teaches them how to go unnoticed until they choose otherwise and Michael teaches them how to use someone's own mind against them. The pair seem almost unnaturally pleased with how easily the foursome take to the new activities.

"Your ideas of right and wrong don't mean anything unless you're both playing from the same rulebook," Ian says and his teeth flash in the faint dawn light. "And I'm telling you that nobody out there has a copy of yours."

Don writes to his parents and nothing he puts on paper means anything at all.

"Gain someone's trust and they'll hand you everything you need to destroy their guard from the inside out," Michael says and his eyes are stone. "Give no one yours and you'll be indestructible."

The girls ask them to help them improve their times in the final fitness test the next week and they spend every free moment running.

They run until their whole bodies are screaming so loud that their minds are finally silent.

They fall a little in love that week because somehow there is nothing but a peaceful, quiet exhaustion.

**xiv.**

Charlotte and Terry score higher on the week fourteen fitness test than any other female in the recruit pool. Alice and Erin score higher than a considerable number of the males.

Don doesn't falter even a little this time and is a solid two seconds ahead of Alex. Richard and Carter tie for third and Ian gives them the Friday morning off as a reward. There is something in the faint glimmer of pride in Ian's dark eyes that makes the four of them get up at dawn and run again for the sheer reason that they can.

The screaming is more muted than ever before until Don realises that there are only six weeks left before all of this is over and then it seems to ring, unshakeable, in his ears.

They end up in Ian's apartment that evening anyway and Don tells him that he wants to go into Fugitive Recovery. Richard asks whether Ian has an in to the Behavioural Analysis Unit and Ian tells Alex and Carter to talk to Michael Wells about getting into SWAT.

**xv.**

Don's parents reply to his letter in the fifteenth week and say that they miss him and can't wait for him to come home. He puts his face in his hands for a moment because there isn't a single cell in his body that wants to leave this place.

Ian's eyes are dark and knowing the next morning when Don steps into the range before dawn. "They can't take this," he says quietly. "What you were, are, become, not any of it. You've made your choice."

Two hours and two hundred rounds later, panting and shaking with exertion, Don still doesn't quite know what the other man meant by his words but he's just a little less terrified of this ending. Quantico has taught him that even little achievements add up to great things and he has a newly discovered hunger for great things.

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_**Fifteen down and five to go. **_


	4. Chapter 4

_**Struggled a little bit with this chapter but I hope it reads alright. Also, for anyone who actually knows how Quantico works in terms of schedules, I don't have more than a cursory idea from glancing over the website so I apologise for any mistakes. You are all absolutely wonderful. One last tiny bit to go after this – I won't wait a whole week to post that but will probably put it up towards the end of the weekend.**_

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**Part IV: XVI-XX**

**xvi.**

Don's whole life seems to boil down to these last five weeks as expectations skyrocket and he pushes himself to and beyond limits he didn't know he had. Something in his desperate striving lights a fire under the others and he thinks that maybe, just maybe, he might have been some kind of remarkable in any other world.

The thought is reassuring and unsettling all at once and so Don does what he does best and locks it away under the slowly solidifying granite of his shields.

The sixteenth week brings four firsts all at once.

On the Monday morning Carter manages to take Michael Wells down, for the first time of any of them, with a burst of unexpected speed and strength. The tactical instructor shows his approval with a distinct lack of restraint for the rest of the session and all four of them bear their bruises like badges of honour.

Wednesday's Hogan's Alley session is the first time that they split the four into two teams and Richard discovers the hidden leader in himself. He takes his team to a victory that is awarded praise from their instructors and basks quietly in the feeling.

Thursday evening is the first time Alex finishes their run, leading by a full stride for the last fifty metres, ahead of Don. The two skid to a stop together, hitting the ground in a tangle of limbs and breathless gasping for air. Somehow it isn't Don's failure but a success for both of them and that is an exhilarating thought.

Saturday is a first for Don when he and Terry sit in the laundry with the rumbling of the machines under their legs, slices of pizza in their laps and a distinct lack of barriers between them as she tells him quietly about why she joined the FBI. Terry's hand rests on Don's knee and he meets her eyes readily when she says his name.

"Talk to me."

For the first time, he does.

**xvii.**

Ian and Michael sit them down in an empty room the weekend of the seventeenth week.

"You've done the interrogation classes," Ian says and there is an edge to his voice that immediately sets Don's skin to prickling. "You've been taught to be bound by ethics and the law when extracting information in the interrogation room. Sometimes there isn't time and sometimes things are so far from what they seem that you'd laugh if you didn't end up with a gag in your mouth and held by someone who thinks you know things that maybe you do and maybe you don't. If you're captured then chances are whoever has you is _not_ going to be bound by the same constraints you are."

"First," Michael says coolly. "They're going to ask you not-so-nicely to tell them what you know. They might threaten to kill you if you don't talk. They might threaten you with the lives of your family or your friends. Sometimes they will have them."

"You're going to have to decide whether the security of the information they want is worth that," Ian continues. "It's easy to say that no information is worth a life but you work for the government now. You're going to have access and be privy to things the like of which you've probably never imagined." He flashes a slightly terrifying smile. "Even if you don't have it, the most important thing is that they think you do, and there are people in the world that will do lots of things to get their hands on that information."

"They might put a bullet in each of your knees." Michael's voice is even and they do the best they can to keep their faces expressionless and their breathing regular. "Shatter the bones in your hands and your feet. It doesn't matter how strong you think your mind is, there comes a breaking point for both it and your body."

Ian leans forward and pins each of them with a piercing stare. Don doesn't think he'll ever forget the way Ian's eyes seem to suck the very light from the air in that moment.

"My question to you is whether you think you can hold that mental breaking point off until you're rescued?"

Michael's voice shatters the silence before they can answer. "And if rescue isn't coming, can your mind outlast your body and take the secrets you're protecting to your grave?"

**xviii.**

Their third to last Friday in Virginia, Alex and Carter come crashing into Don's room where he, Richard, Alice and Terry are reading over the transcripts from that day's moot court, breathless excitement in every inch of them.

"Edgerton has our placements!" Carter blurts. "All of us. He's waiting with Wells on the field."

They sit cross-legged on the grass like eager school children and Ian and Michael look vaguely, and a little indulgently, amused as they settle against the tree trunk.

"Congratulations," Michael says, fixing his eyes on Alex and Carter. "Miami field office SWAT are willing to take the both of you."

There are fist bumps and happy exclamations and both are gifted with swift kisses that make Ian cough pointedly until Erin and Charlotte meet his eyes with only the slightest flush to their cheeks. "The pair of you are heading to New Jersey field office. They're shorthanded in Narcotics and Violent Crime right now so there's probably some fieldwork in your immediate futures."

He looks at Richard and flicks his eyes to Terry, moving back and forth as he speaks. "A friend in the BAU has found a couple of openings in the local field office that you can fill. He'll handle your extra training and if that goes well then you've got your in."

Terry scoots sideways, leaning against Don, and practically radiating delight. Richard's eyes are alight with satisfaction as Alice's hand closes around his in congratulations and nervousness.

"You're heading to New York," Ian says to Alice. "Straight to white collar crime." Her hand loosens slightly around Richard's as she relaxes and he returns the pressure with an easy smile.

Ian's eyes flick to Don who thinks that he was wrong and his whole life has boiled down to _this_ moment right now as the man seems to deliberately draw out the wait. A wry quirk at the side of his mouth makes Don breathe in sharply.

"You're heading on the road with Fugitive Recovery, Eppes. Reporting to Washington after graduation and I might see you out there."

Don closes his eyes as a smile, bright as the slowly setting sun, spreads over his face and he leans against Terry in relief.

They celebrate that night and, for once, it feels like the ghosts are completely gone even if it is only for a little while.

**xix.**

Quantico is practically abuzz in week nineteen. Placement preferences have been lodged, some approved, some declined, a few select recruits already aware, and there is a sense of achievement in the air because they're almost at the end and it has been drummed into them that their lives begin when they take that oath at the graduation ceremony.

Four letters arrive that week, confirming details for the graduation ceremony, and for the first time four replies are written and sent without more than the barest hesitation.

Richard breaks their unwritten rule of silence but, by this point, it doesn't really matter.

"Have to say goodbye to the past to make room for the future, right?"

Don nods automatically in response but there is a bitter taste in his mouth at the lie because he knows that part of him _is_ the past and he can't let that go.

**xx.**

They all pretend not to notice the others' eyes on each other as they greet the family that comes to watch them take the first steps into their lives as special agents. Don watches from the corner of his eyes as Richard's father shakes his son's hand calmly and his mother gives him a quick and emotionless hug, as Alex and Carter's parents approach the pair of them from opposite sides and firmly demand their son's sole focus with a distinct lack of warmth.

He knows that the three of them, and the girls, are watching as his mother draws him into an embrace heavy with things that neither of them will acknowledge even though they know they're there and his father claps him on the shoulder with a maelstrom of disbelief, fear and a little pride, whirling in his eyes. Charlie looks around, all wide-eyed curiosity and faint streaks of chalk dust. Don has to be the one to touch his brother's arm in greeting.

Terry doesn't let go of his hand unless forced by their places in line. Alex is steady and strong at his side and he is irrationally grateful for their sequential surnames. He thinks the oath that they take has to be the truest thing any of them have ever said and there is an immediate sense of belonging, up there on that stage, in the group that somehow seems bigger than it ever has before.

Awards for academic and athletic achievements are handed out with a minimum of fuss and Don pretends not to see the vague surprise in any of their parents' eyes when they return to the grass to continue the festivities with pieces of paper declaring their achievements for all to see.

For a moment Richard stiffens beside him and he immediately surveys the area for a threat before he realises that this is probably one of the last times they will be genuinely safe. His eyes catch sight of Ian and Michael, maybe a dozen yards away, watching them with an indecipherable kind of uncertainty that looks completely at odds with the men that they've come to know and admire.

Don suddenly knows that he doesn't want the two worlds, the two versions of himself, to collide and that neither will the others. He shakes his head minutely and mouths 'later' before turning to nod in response to whatever it is his father has just said.

Taking a deep breath, he forces a smile and introduces himself to Richard's parents politely.

_Everything is only temporary_, he says to himself as his mother's hand settles on his back. _This is only temporary and this is almost over. You just have to be patient a little longer_.

Terry's hand slides back into his soon enough and he knows that it's almost over. The thought is both thrilling and a little terrifying.

* * *

_**Not 100% on how this one turned out but we're almost at the end as well!**_


	5. Chapter 5

_**Just a little parting gift to finish this off.**_

* * *

**Part V: XXI**

**xxi.**

Don looks in the mirror, checks his watch, and looks again.

He sees pieces of Alex, Carter, Richard, Ian, Michael, splinters of the girls and flickers of people he doesn't quite remember but can't forget either, staring back at him from his own face.

He sees the familiar glaze of his father's disappointment and his mother's confusion in his own eyes.

He sees an echo of Charlie's frenetic energy in the wayward lock of hair that has fallen out of place.

He checks his watch without taking notice of the time, runs his fingers through his hair to fix it, and blinks. His parents fade from his eyes and his reflection is once again as much his own as it ever has been.

He can still see the pieces of others that make up the fabric of his reflection.

Tearing his eyes away from the mirror, he glances at his watch a third time and slides his sidearm smoothly into the holster at his hip. It feels more a part of him than his reflection and, with that thought and a hand resting lightly upon it, he locks the door behind him and settles into the skin of an FBI agent as he walks down the hallway.

* * *

_**And there we go. Hope you've enjoyed it!**_


End file.
